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Pragmatic, Progressive, Problematic: Addressing Vulnerability through a Local Street Sex Work Partnership Initiative

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2017

Kate Brown  and
Teela Sanders
Kate Brown
Affiliation:
Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of York E-mail: kate.brown@york.ac.uk
Teela Sanders
Affiliation:
Department of Criminology, University of Leicester E-mail: tlms1@leicester.ac.uk
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Abstract

Whilst it remains a criminal activity to solicit sex publicly in the UK, it has become increasingly popular to configure sex workers as ‘vulnerable’, often as a means of foregrounding the significant levels of violence faced by female street sex workers. Sex work scholars have highlighted that this discourse can play an enabling role in a moralistic national policy agenda which criminalises and marginalises those who sell sex. Yet multiple and overlapping narratives of vulnerability circulate in this policy arena, raising questions about how these might operate at ground level. Drawing on empirical data gathered in the development of an innovative local street sex work multi-agency partnership in Leeds, this article explores debates, discourses and realities of sex worker vulnerability. Setting applied insights within more theoretically inclined analysis, we suggest how vulnerability might usefully be understood in relation to sex work, but also highlight how social justice for sex workers requires more than progressive discourses and local initiatives. Empirical findings highlight that whilst addressing vulnerability through a local street sex work multi-agency partnership initiative, a valuable platform for shared action on violence in particular can be created. However, an increase in fundamental legal and social reform is required in order to address the differentiated and diverse lived experiences of sex worker vulnerability.

Keywords

Vulnerabilitysex workprostitutiondecriminalisationsafety
Type
Themed Section on Vulnerability and Social Justice
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , July 2017 , pp. 429 - 441
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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